


Basic Forms of Government

by inbox



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Fallout Kink Meme, Gen, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3875098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time for a lesson in structural functionalism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basic Forms of Government

"Just... just give me a moment to wrap my head around this." Arcade pushed his glasses back up his nose and looked at Six. "You're their leader."  
  
"Ayup." The Courier grinned through a mouthful of meat. "Whaddya think?"  
  
"I think..." said Arcade, for once in his life completely lost for words. "I think they may have made a mistake."  
  
If he'd thought that he'd be spending the night sitting around a bonfire eating chunks of molerat meat from improvised barbecue forks, Arcade would've said no to Six's invitation of a night out. He was expecting... oh, he didn't know. An evening in the Westside Co-Op shooting the breeze with Clayton and trying not to start a fight with Anderson. Maybe swinging by the Casa Madrid and standing awkwardly outside the closed door as Six blew all his caps on a ten minute trembler from Sweetie. Eating freshly slaughtered meat, refusing a variety of drugs and making small talk with a pack of Fiends hadn't even popped onto his radar as a possible option for tonight's entertainment.  
  
Six leaned back and tapped the bleached bone snout of his garish new hat, a baby Bighorner skull somehow lashed on to an old leather football helmet. The keys and feathers tied liberally all over it, thought Arcade, suited Six perfectly – impractical, flighty, and distracted by shiny things.  
  
"Aww, c'mon man," said Six, pointing a well-chewed bone at him. "Why you gotta bring me down?"  
  
"I'm just a little... a little surprised. Surprised that you've, uh, opted to become the leader of, err, a--"  
  
"Tribe."  
  
Arcade offered a watery grin at the hulking bear of a man who interrupted him, and in return was offered a sunny grin full of chronic Slasher-tooth. "A tribe. Sure. Why not."  
  
"A collective group with defined social stratification, at any rate. Technically a tribe, more or less." The huge man ended his sentence with a lavish belch.  
  
"I earned it." Six chewed the gristle from the bone then tossed it over his shoulder. "I bested their mightiest warrior and now I'm their god."  
  
The huge brute cleared his throat. "Actually you're more of a chieftain. We mostly maintain a meritocracy where leadership is earned through successfully passing challenges and tests and not by embodying a living god. Vis-à-vis you and the late Motor-Runner, you happened to best him by cutting his head off." He pressed a Nuka-Cola bottle to the crook of his elbow and wrenched the cap off with a flex of his arm. "You right there, blondie?"  
  
Arcade snapped his mouth shut.  
  
"I mean," the brute continued, "One could also argue that we are a stratocratic society, particularly with those NCR fuckers parked so close that they're almost up our collective asses and forcing us into the untenable position of maintaining a warlike state, but it's probably neither here nor there." He paused to drain his bottle of pop in one messy swallow and put the bottle on the concrete, giving it a spin.  
  
"Like a god," said Six again.  
  
The bottle slowed and span once, twice, and stopped. The open end pointed at Arcade, and the brute pointed at him. "You agree, right?"  
  
"I, uh." Arcade cautiously reached out to take the last molerat skewer, holding the fatty meat in front of him like a protective shield. "If you aligned with the Powder Gangers in Vault 19 you would technically have a junta."  
  
The huge man laughed. "I like the way you think, blondie. Good to see the Followers haven't stopped teaching political neologisms since my day. Want some jet?"  
  
Arcade blinked, and tried to say  _no thank you_  and  _how do you know what Followers teach_  and  _were you a Follower_ and _what_  all at the same time, and ended up saying, " _Hguarf_."  
  
"A god with a skull hat," said Six proudly, and threw a molerat shank into the dark.


End file.
